Olive oil spat shows battle over labeling happening in North Bay food, ag industries

What’s in a name? For local agriculture and food producers, it’s a lot.

A recent example from the olive oil industry provides some insight into how the provenance of one’s product is crucial to stand out in a global marketplace. It also has highlighted how these issues will continue to reappear in other food battles in the future worth billions of dollars.

The crux of the latest case was that some olive oil manufacturers were upset over a major producer who had California on its label but was using imported foreign oil in one of their products. That spurred Assembly Member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Winters, to act as she believed that consumers could be easily misled. She sponsored legislation that would have required 100% of the olive oil had to be derived from olives grown within the state to use “California Olive Oil” on a product label.

“What was happening that some of the product that was coming from out of the country and it may have been on a barge … and you mix it with our products from California,” said Aguiar-Curry, whose family owns an 80-acre walnut orchard. “The right thing is to make sure that people knew what the California product is.”

The lawmaker found a key ally in McEvoy Ranch, a 550-acre family-owned property in the hills west of Petaluma that has been at the forefront of selling premium olive oil from its trees on its estate.

Company president Samantha Dorsey said the truth-in-labeling issue was crucial, especially given the higher cost of doing business in California such as its stricter environmental regulations.

“It's necessary for those of us who are farming in California to receive the value for our crop,” said Dorsey, who noted the company’s olive oil business continues to grow with its flavored oils first introduced in 2016 that now include such flavors as blood orange and jalapeno. “It devalues the name of California, and the brand of California when products are labeled as California but are imports. So, it's not a quality issue. There's lots of great olive oils from different countries, and it's not even an issue with imports. It's just an issue with labeling your imports correctly or labeling all imports correctly.”

But legislative wrangling occurred after opposition from California Olive Ranch out of Chico, which introduced its global blend product line after a statewide olive crop disaster in 2018 when it needed to source from out of the country.

California Olive Ranch CEO Michael Fox said in a statement that the company has always labeled the countries of origin “prominently on the front of our labels” and that it had a right to use its name within its logo as a federally registered trademark under the First Amendment.

Aguiar-Curry was forced to make some concessions along the way to passage. The final version of the legislation, AB 535, resulted in a compromise that required producers to disclose the minimum percentage of California olives on the front of the container in the same font and size as the term “California.” It was signed into law Oct. 4 by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The spat, however, is just one of a long line controversies and tussles over labeling, which is well known within the local wine industry where vintners are able to charge more for their product depending on the American Viticulture Area where the grapes are grown.

The Napa Valley Vintners trade group has been on the forefront in lobbying for more protections to protect the “Napa Valley” name given its grapes are the most highly valued in the country with the cabernet sauvignon variety going for more $8,700 per average ton. Wineries have constantly sought new territories to designate where their fruit comes from to provide on their labels an added boost in the marketplace. After yearslong lobbying by west county wineries, the new West Sonoma Coast American Viticulture Area was recently granted by the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

“Labeling is a big deal in a lot of these food and beverage industries, including olive oil,” said Robert Eyler, an economist at Sonoma State University who studies the local economy. “From an economic perspective, it can hold a price. That’s why in some of these cases it’s a very, very big deal.”

The state’s cannabis growers are trying to replicate such a system for their product, hoping that regions in the Emerald Triangle region of Mendocino and Humboldt counties can bring a higher price when sold for use at a licensed dispensary. The California Department of Food and Agriculture is developing a structure on how these areas may be designated with a webinar to be held later this month.

“I think we will see an evolution of cannabis labeling that is much more akin in terms of wine,” Eyler said.

But such issues can also end up in legal disputes. Miyoko’s Creamery, a Petaluma manufacturer of plant-based dairy alternatives, won a lawsuit last year against the California Department of Food and Agriculture that prohibited it from using terms such as “vegan butter” in its marketing efforts.

The olive oil dust-up was just another controversy along the same lines, though the debate underlined potential economic harm that premium producers felt they were under from cheaper imports.

For example, McEvoy Ranch sells a herbes de Provence olive oil for $34.20 for a 375-milliliter bottle on its website that it contends is a perfect complement for a minestrone soup or a French omelet. It’s part of a business strategy to expand beyond just using olive oil for salads and dipping into bread to items such as a skin care line that includes CBD products derived from cannabis. It also has recently opened up a downtown Petaluma store for those who can’t voyage out to its property in Marin County.

“On the shelf, that it makes it look like we're inflating our prices when it's simply the cost of doing business here in California,” Dorsey said of the cost differential of cheaper imports.

The ranch also offers wine, honey and other items under its brand that has developed since its founding in 1990. The key is to uphold the quality that customers have expected from McEvoy over the years and let them know more about where the products come from, she said.

“We do think the more information that you can give the customer and the more transparent you can be in your interactions with your customers on your label, the more trust you build with your consumer base. And ultimately businesses are built around trust that consumers have with the brand,” Dorsey said.

On the heels of the olive oil debate, Aguiar-Curry has already sponsored legislation — AB 2323 — to apply similar labeling rules to agave grown in California as many Central Valley farmers are switching to the plant that forms the basis for mezcal and tequila, which doesn’t take a lot of water to grow.

“Once again, we want to have the top agave product from California and it will be labeled California agave,” she said. “The agave one is very similar to the olive oil one.”

You can reach Staff Writer Bill Swindell at 707-521-5223 or bill.swindell@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @BillSwindell.